Wines in the Glass

I think people underestimate how quickly most wines change in the glass. I was reminded of this listening to Giulia Negri explain to Stanley Tucci on CNN’s Searching for Italy series that one  of the particular beauties of Barolo is that it changes in the glass with great rapidity - and indeed with each sip the wine seems to emphasize something different.

There is of course the issue of what happens to the wine before it even gets into the glass - while it rests in the decanter. This is not the place to discuss the various approaches to decanting. Suffice to say that the whole concept of exposing wine to air to improve it prior to drinking it supposes that the wine changes with time after the cork is pulled. There are dozens of points of view regarding the merits and process of decanting. I know some who assert the wine gets less pleasant in the decanter before it gets better -  but at that later point it its more enjoyable than if you had poured it immediately from the bottle. What seems certain is that if a wine changes so much in the decanter it surely must continue to do so when subsequently in the glass. It doesn’t just stop changing. Proponents of not decanting at all take this position usually because they want the wine to change only while it is in the glass, not from the belief that wines don’t change at all. Rather the opposite.

So everybody accepts wines change in the glass. A glass returned to after being set aside a while bring choruses of “My, how that has changed”. I don’t recall anyone ever saying “Oh, this hasn’t changed at all”. But my point is how little time it takes for noticeable changes to occur.

That a wine changes so quickly when in the glass may not be everyone’s preference. At a single point during this progression one may find the wine at its most appealing and one would prefer if that moment was not fleeting. But one of wine’s beauties is that it is alive and so, that it not taste precisely the same in the glass over even ten minutes is to be appreciated as the expression of the wine’s vibrancy.  Since there is no other option - unless one drinks the wine extremely quickly when one thinks it to be at its very best - we may as well get behind this idea that it is part of wines’ wonder that it is never precisely the same from one minute to the next.

Without really any basis to support the assertion, I would expect that some grape varieties have a propensity to change in the glass more than others.   

This is the reason I try not to write a tasting note until I have finished the glass. And in that note I try to emphasize how the wine changed over the course of the time I took to drink it. If not, a note is just a single frame in time - not just in the long journey of the wine over many years in the bottle, but also at a particular point in time while the wine was in the glass.

So what on earth is a Riserva ?

It is a commonly held view - perpetuated not least by the very high prices of these wines - that a label designating a wine as a “Riserva” means the wine is of higher quality than a bottle not so designated. And so, for example, in the explanation of the meaning of the term, EatalyVino says  quite succinctly - “In Italy, we use the word riserva to indicate a superior vino.”

What is clear is that if a riserva is from a selection of grapes across many parcels rather than from the entirety of the fruit harvested from a single vineyard, that selection will be of the best grapes. Nobody makes a selection of less good grapes to put into a riserva bottling. So the fruit is likely the very best available.

This fruit may then be given additional time in barrel or botti. In some cases the law requires this, though often the rules do not specify an additional period in wood but simply require the wine not to be released until a certain period of time has elapsed since harvest. But if the wine does get additional time in barrel - by regulation or winemaker choice - this wine will have received more oxygenation and perhaps some advancement in its maturity. On release these wines will benefit from being made from the highest quality fruit but will also have a softened tannin profile and perhaps a paler color than the regular bottling. My understanding is that riservas are intended to age a very long time but this is a misconception on my part. The lengthy aging in wood seems to me very often to make the wine more ready to drink than the regular bottling - a riper, more oaked, softer and lighter colored wine, with, of course, beautiful fruit.

In rarer instances, where a particular vineyard’s fruit character as a whole is judged to merit some additional aging before release, the winery may simply hold this wine back a year or two and release it after it has, say, three years in bottle.  This in effect is what Sylvia Altare has done with her Barolo Cerretta 2017. The wine, as I have it, receives no more time in barrel than any other cru from the estate, but because of the particular tannic structure of wines from the Ceretta vineyard, the winery wisely decided to hold the wine back a while in bottle so that, on release, the wine would have lost some of its sterner Serralunga character and some of the robustness of its tannin. It is labeled as a “riserva”. This is confusing because, ten years after the vintage, this wine has received absolutely no different a treatment than a wine bottled without the ‘riserva” designation. It is more properly a ‘late release”. Chateau Latour of course does the same - holding back the Grand Vin at the Chateau for an admirable ten years prior to release. So, as I understand it, does Domaine Jacques Frederic Mugnier in relation to their Musigny, which they hold at the winery in bottle for three additional years. But neither Chateau Latour nor Jacques- Frederic Mugnier label their wine as a “Reserve”.

The motivation behind the practice in all these cases is that the consumer is inclined to drink the wine too soon / almost immediately after release. Restaurants also contribute to the overly prompt consumption of newly released wine. To address this, since these wines benefit from some time in bottle, the estate holds back the wine so it will show more favorably on release and more faithfully represent its origins. This is an admirable practice. But if you keep your wines for ten years after release anyway, it is not at all clear to me why the wine should be designated “riserva” just because the wine has been held in bottle at the winery rather than in my cellar. Yet clearly in many cases the rules allow for this. And, fortunately, in my case the cost of storage is almost zero. So why pay extra to have the winery store it ?

In most cases, of course, the riserva wine will indeed have received more time in wood. And then the distinction in designation is merited, especially if a normal bottling of the same wine is also made. The gripe then is that it is not clear why in the case of wines from Tuscany in particular the price of these wines is so very much higher than the regular bottling. It seems wineries in Piedmont can age their wine a few months longer in wood than the norm and not charge double for it.  I suppose in Tuscany’s case we must pay full freight for the marginally superior fruit quality in the riserva bottling. Though it does happen, its is much rarer in Piedmont than in Tuscany to have both a regular and a riserva bottling of the same wine.

All of which is just to say - know what you are getting when you buy a ‘riserva”. The underlying fruit may be better but the additional time in oak may not in fact be justified. “Better” fruit does not necessarily need more time in barrel. Some might indeed say the opposite. And the resulting wine can be softer and more approachable than the regular bottling, which may or may not be what you want. In other instances this may not be the case - the selected fruit truly merits longer aging in wood - as is the case with Giacomo Conterno’s Monfortino or Mascarello’s Ca d’Morissio. Or, on occasion, it may be you are simply paying for the extra for time in bottle. Know what you are getting into. All Riservas are not the same.

Reading Vintages...

Perhaps it is just me, but of late I have bought a number of bottles where the vintage of the wine is written is such extraordinarily small font that one has to assume some message is intended to be sent by the winemaker choosing to use such tiny script. One subsequent speck of dirt or one minor discoloration of the label would make a “5” indecipherable from a “6” or a “6” from an “8”. Or in fact most numbers from any other number.  And not in every case is the vintage restated on the back label.

Examples include Roagna’s Barbarescos, Giulia Negri’s Barolos and Eric Texier's Rhone wines.

Perhaps the message is that vintages are less important than commonly thought. But surely one should be able to read the vintage on the label.

I wonder why they do this ?

Rustic Elegance ?

There is surely no question that in the vocabulary used to describe wines the word “rustic” is prejorative and the word ‘elegant” is favorable. I think these terms are commonly thought to mean the opposite of each other. But closer examination indicates they should not.

First, let’s just establish that elegance has nothing to do with the weight of the wine. Being described as elegant does not prohibit a wine from also being powerful and full bodied.  Chateau Latour (admittedly not a heavyweight) may appropriately be described as elegant. So may a Barolo at 14.5% alcohol. Equally, a lighter weight wine is not elegant simply because it has lighter body.  “Elegance” has nothing to do with scale of the wine. It just means “graceful” or “stylish”, both words hard further to define affirmatively. But having grace or style I associate with not being clumsy or heavy footed or ponderous. There is perhaps a sense of ease and self confidence and effortlessness.

The word “rustic” is most commonly used to convey that the wine just isn’t sophisticated. Confusingly, in common speech, the term “rustic” is associated with being rural or from the countryside - thus impliedly lacking in sophistication.  A wine so described may lack nuance, but that surely doesn’t mean the wine necessarily lacks style or even grace. Why could a wine not have a certain country elegance or country style ? Style is not limited to mean sophistication. Kermit Lynch lately put out a marketing piece emphasizing a particular wine’s “rustic charm”.

So the adjectives “elegant” and “rustic” are not strictly the opposite of each other in meaning. Perhaps a wine could at the same time be both rustic and elegant.  There is surely such thing as “country elegance” and “country charm”.

I would like to see less use by wine critics of the term “rustic” in descriptions given to wines - especially when they are used broadly. The word not only is completely damning of the wine - who wants a rustic wine or a wine with rustic tannins - but the word also has quite a wide range of possible meanings. Why not be more specific and say “unsophisticated” or “lacking in nuance” or “lacking in refinement” or or even just “simple”.

The picture is simply a wall of a farmhouse that might properly be described as ‘rustic” in the prejorative sense

The Journey

Like many activities or hobbies that unfold over extended periods of time, collecting and consuming wine has elements of a journey.

The first progression is how you yourself relate to the wine - to what is in the glass itself.  I think over time ones appreciation for the emotional impact a wine can have broadens. Instead of thinking mostly of technical reasons why the wine is good one becomes more receptive to what the wine has to say in a wider context - how the wine makes you feel. The wine can make you feel privileged or fill you with wonder. It can cause you frustration or simply make you happy. It can hold your attention or fail to do so. And while these emotions can be felt early in the journey that is wine collecting I do think experience helps develop this capacity for a broader emotional response. With time comes a greater facility to listen to the wine in ways in which a newcomer does not normally participate. The relationship to wine changes. But it takes time.

There is also a second and separate set of emotional responses that need time to develop for you to be able to feel them.  These are the responses that derive not from what is intrinsically in the glass but from memories of prior experiences and from your relationship to people you have met along the journey and how these relate to the wine being drunk in the moment.Only after many years have passed and many wine related encounters experienced - with wines, people and places - can one have built up a sort of database that you can draw on when drinking a wine today to generate a response in this category. And as your contact with wine in all its dimensions grows, that database in all its facets grows. But this takes time. 

I remember, for example, drinking my first bottle of Brunello di Montalcino. It was a bottle of Biondi Santi Anata 1985 on some stone steps in the town of Montalcino itself during the beautiful grape harvest of 1990. I don’t appreciate Brunello di Montalcino as much as many but when I drink one day I am infallibly drawn back to this happy memory.  That is an emotional response, drawing on my past. I have a litany of such memories - everything from a long but strangely pleasant wait in Vouvray for a bus back to Tours after tasting at Huet; to going into the church at Morey Saint Denis to get respite from the bitter December cold; to having my Fiat 500 packed with four adults almost fail to make it up the hill of Via Grosso in Castiglione Falletto. The list is almost endless.

In this category of responses not intrinsic to the wine itself I think by far the most important are those related to people - the friends you have made and people you have met along the way. Memorable dinners with friends with whom you have laughed and drunk into the small hours. This category includes everything from recalling a friend who you know is particularly fond of the type of wine in your glass today to drinking the wines made by people you have met. Or it could simply be friends in whose company you last drank this particular wine. If you press me, I would go so far as to say that after a long time of drinking and responding to wine - as one perhaps approaches the end of the long journey - one comes to realize that wine is actually not at all about what is in the glass but almost entirely about people. These experiences take time to accumulate. Most of them - in fact I think almost all - generate happy emotional responses. And having them to draw upon makes drinking the wine so much more emotionally impactful than simply a direct response to what is in the glass.  

Both these journeys have a start but they never actually end.

Trusting your Palate

It takes an extraordinarily high level of confidence absolutely to trust your own palate when tasting a wine.  Each of us has had numerous experiences when others, tasting the same wine, have said they experience some component that you just don’t “get”. I myself recall tasting the new vintage of Barolo at Francesco Rinaldi with friends who really drink a lot more Barolo than I do and whose opinions I greatly respect. After the tasting I said to the group that I had found the Cannubi particularly tannic - more so than the Brunate. My friends in unison said they had found the opposite to be the case - that the Brunate was much the more tannic of the two. So not only was I apparently wrong but I had diminished my credibility among my friends as a competent taster.  I was left wondering I would ever be any good at it and resolved in future not to be the first to express a view, so as not to risk embarrassing myself further. 

This is silly. There are many reasons why what I perceive in a wine may not align with what others perceive. And their perceptions do not mean that mine are not faithful representations of what I taste. Jamie Goode’s book Tasting Red clearly evidences this. I wrote an earlier post on the topic of the high degree of subjectivity in tasting, but I touch on this point here because it clearly goes to one’s confidence as a taster. I taste what I taste and no one can tell me I should not be tasting those flavors or structural components in the wine - at least not within certain wide boundaries of descriptive competence. Even if three people find a wine tannic that you do not, this does not mean you are wrong.

While it is easy to assert that you cannot be wrong, it is quite another thing to actually believe it - as my Rinaldi experience illustrates. With practice and time comes both competence and a greater understanding of the uniqueness of your own palate. So much so that I now know to which components in a wine I may be particularly sensitive and indeed when, in the course of tasting, certain sensations will become prominent. I know, for example, that I am unlikely to be the first to notice that a wine is mildly corked. And I know I sometimes interpret what others perceive as intense flavors of cassis as mild volatile acidity, though I do not understand why. But I do know I am quite sensitive to volatile acidity, which may have something to do with it. I also know that the sensation of tannins for me accumulates significantly as I drink more of the wine. I may not get it right away but by the end of the glass I will agree with those who noticed the high tannin level on their first sip. The same is true of new oak - I am pretty sensitive to it to start with, but by the second glass I may find the sensation so strong as seriously to compromise my opinion of the wine. Others may find the oak present but nicely integrated. I might indeed notice the oak sensation on the first sip that others only later perceive. And so it goes.

Nor is there anything wrong to my mind with needing some time with a wine fully to witness everything it has to reveal - both good and less good.  It may be that I am not the best “one sip” taster. And if that failing makes me less good as a taster then so be it. But my measure and assessment of a wine has no need of being made in a single first sip. If I buy the wine I am intending to drink at least a whole glass of it !  Common wisdom also says many wines change quite a bit in the glass over even the first 20 minutes or so.  And in the conversation between myself and the wine in the glass before me I think some of my perceptive faculties take a little time to warm up too. Maybe it is not just the wine that is changing. Knowing this, if I write a note, it will be when the glass is empty. This is not because the last sip is more representative of the wine than the first sip ( though often I believe it is) but because I can evaluate the whole experience of my interaction with what is in the glass over more than a single moment.

One’s prowess as a taster is assessed today by how well you can perceive and communicate what you experience in the first or second sip of a wine, and how well those sensations align with what others experience in their first few moments with the wine. Certainly that is the measure of a wine critic. And it can serve a useful purpose. I suppose I wish I was better at it. But actually I don’t much care about that. What matters to me is what did I experience and enjoy about the wine when I have finished the glass. What did it have to say ? How well did it go with the food ? Did it make me happy ? These are not assessments made in the very first moment but perhaps over the course of an hour or so. And if you look at it from this perspective, it is easier to see that the experience has a good degree of subjectivity to it. And no one can tell me I am wrong, even though this type of commentary will not get me through any wine exams.

See my earlier post on the discipline of writing wine tasting notes, which makes some of the same points in that context.

Acid Anyone ?

I am struck reading the critics reviews of the 2017 vintage in Barolo how few of these actually say anything at all about the level of sensation of acid in these wines. There is a lot of commentary about tannin but hardly a word about whether the wine has enough acid to give it lift and freshness and a prospective long life. Considering this was a growing season when sugar and phenolic ripeness did not arrive at the same time you would think reporting on acid level would be of interest to the reader.

The Burgundians perhaps are more focused on acid than the Piedmontese.  It would be rare I suppose for Nebbiolo not to give adequate acid - and it is fair to say that the shape and character of the tannins in Barolo are a big part of what defines quality of the wine, whereas with Pinot Noir adequate acid levels should not be presumed.  And the list of Burgundian winemakers who assert that acid really is the key component in the wine that they are trying to retain is long. Acid levels also get attention because of the amount of white wine made in Burgundy, for which acid is evidently a primary component of balance in the wine. These considerations mean that the focus on acid is very much part of the make-up of Burgundian sensibility in a way that perhaps it is not in Piedmont. One might - at the risk of oversimplifying - say that the big variable in assessing quality in Barolo is the quality of the tannin and in Burgundy it is the quality of the acid.

But nevertheless, dear critics, in these present times of exceptional warmth and dryness, could we please hear at least something about acid in Barolo…..

Why are you writing a tasting note ?

There is a passage in Richard Olney’s book “Romanee Conti” in which he recounts sitting down with Lalou, Aubert and Aubert’s father Henri de Villaine. He asks them to help him by describing the personalities of each of the wines made by the Domaine. One of those present - it is not referenced who - described Grands Echezeaux as -

     “…a country gentleman, aristocrat and dreamer, who idles willingly with a unhurried step of his horse in a forest filled with the scents of sundry mushrooms, of mosses, of dead and decaying leaves, of furtive small game, which spill forth in a multitude of shifting alliances. All of that is expressed delicately, in a refined musical tongue, concise and pure like the message of a Mozart quartet.”

I recall this particular description to this day - 25 years on.  What struck me at the time and still does is how remarkably effective the analogies are in describing the personality or temperament of the wine - to a person slowly riding a horse, the forest and the sounds of a Mozart Quartet - in translating a sense of the personality of the wine.  Though by no means a technical note, one gets a sense of the expected texture of the wine by the cadence of its delivery from the slow steps of horse and its precision by the analogy to a Mozart quartet. The description of the forest floor analogy does of course actually articulate flavors. But overall I found this description at the time remarkably concise and effective. 

Many analogies work effectively in this way. Analogizing wine to people is not so uncommon. A well known resident of Burgundy has been known to contrast two wines in front of him by saying one is like Gina Lollobrigida (or sometimes Sophia Loren) and the other like Audrey Hepburn. Other more colorful references to present day actresses have been overheard at his table. 

Music is a very common analogy and it seems to me a completely appropriate and helpful reference. A good friend of mine frequently uses jazz musician analogies to describe wine - especially by contrast. A wine is more like the music of one jazz musician than another. Fine artists of course might be another means of conveying sentiment, because these arts are designed to elicit an emotional response from the listener or the viewer. Performing artists work too. I recall “The wine dances like Baryshnikov !“ in a Kermit Lynch text in Adventures on the Wine Route, in relation to how a wine changed when paired with a particular food. And so it can be with wine, which too should elicit an emotional response. 

The French as I understand it from Jamie Goode’s remarkable book "I taste RED” are more inclined to analogize to buildings than we Americans. A wine might be like the Paris Opera perhaps.  Or the Arc de Triomphe.  Or the Louvre Palace. Or perhaps a suburban boulangerie. The French also analogize quite often to food or clothes - though I myself struggle a little to think of helpful examples.

All of which is to say that I believe there really should be three completely distinct types of wine note. 

1. The first is the “Technical Note” which embodies the content almost all modern day critics’ notes contain. It speaks directly to flavors and structural components. The exam note, if you will. Intended so far as possible to meet some objective standard - sensations someone else may be expected to share. You need it to pass the wretched test.

2. The second we might call the “Personality Note” which describes more what the wine is saying and should only be written once the glass is empty. Wait until you have finished the glass before even starting to consider how you would describe the wine. Avoid the temptation to jump into the language of a technical note (which in my case is a longstanding habit the doing of which can actually interrupt my enjoying the wine). Do not rush. It may in fact take several different occasions of drinking the same wine to be able to describe it in this way with confidence. You are trying to describe the personality of the wine. The result would be like the description of Grands Echezeaux above (itself no doubt formed over decades of drinking the wine). Terry Theise - in “What makes a wine worth drinking” gives some pointers as to questions that may help with this - “ What is the wine's temperament ? Is it demure, brash, frisky, serene, boisterous, regal“ ? Analogies to people and their demeanor are useful starting points. As might analogies to music. Subjective of course …but perhaps not entirely so, and less than one might suppose.

3. The third type speaks of the emotional response that the drinker feels when drinking the wine, which normally centers on your response to the wine’s particular expression of beauty. This is akin to how a painting makes you feel when you look at it. For me, Terry Theise’s wonderful notes often fall into this third category as of course would Randall Gramm’s poetry.  I call this the “Response Note”, which ideally requires a certain literary skill - and indeed discipline - which as yet I do not possess but which can equally I suppose be simply limited to “I don’t like it”. It comes down to a question Terry Theise simply asks - “How does the wine make me feel” ?

Each type of note requires a separate approach on the part of the writer, a different intent as to purpose. “Are the notes attempting to describe a wine so that someone might be able to recognize it in a lineup on the basis of the note or are they trying to capture something more transcendent and emotional ?’ - Goode again. Circumstances may oblige you to write a technical note - for a test or examination, for example. But since I am seldom taking exams nor writing a note so someone else can pick out a wine in a lineup, I am trying to move away from the technical note towards the personality note or at least include some component that is a personality note. The communication to the reader in this type of note is at one level far less precise and requires a certain sense of imagination on the part of the reader but I also think at another level it is far more precise because it conjures up an image of the wine’s personality that a purely technical note cannot hope to impart. It may also depend a great deal on the circumstances and company you keep when you drink the wine. I also think that trying to move from technical notes will make me more aware of the wine in a way that ultimately is much more aligned to the reason I like to drink it in the first place. I don’t drink a wine because it has well managed or fully integrated close grained tannin. I drink it because it is extraordinary and pleases me.

For myself, beyond simply saying the wine was a joy to drink, the well articulated Response note will have to wait a bit longer. I need a lot more practice.

I am not expecting it to be easy to change my ways. We’ll see how I do….

The little picture is from Wine Folly, which has some good content on tasting method

Plant Material and Terroir

A reaction from a recent tasting comparing the wines of Chambolle-Musigny with those of Volnay drew attention to how different are the flavors of individual wines. Pinot Noir is basically going to taste of red fruits - red cherry and raspberries in particular - and sometimes fruits of somewhat darker flavors. And all the wines met this broad flavor parameter. But beyond that, there were so many differences expressed in other additional flavor elements - some spices, some pepper, some menthol notes. Different degrees of florality. Soy and even ginger were mentioned by our group. And there seemed to be no consistency between the ten wines as to these supplemental flavors - neither by village nor grower. Each wine, beyond being broadly red fruited, seemed to have a set of unique supplementary flavors.

So one is left asking - what contributes to the wide spectrum of flavors ?  We speculated that the differences in plant material and perhaps rootstock result in a wine having a particular flavor profile that can be unique. A vertical tasting of the same wine - or a pair of wines - from the same grower would be helpful in evaluating the extent to which clones impact flavor. Is it the case, for example, that certain rows of vines in a particular vineyard always present a menthol/mint/ slightly medicinal profile whereas other rows with different clones or rootstocks but essentially identical soils and exposition do not ? The answer is surely yes. 

Presumably these flavor profiles may also be influenced by the particular yeasts in the winemaker's cellar. 

All of which suggests that as to flavors - rather than a wine's structural components - terroir (in the narrow sense of a vineyard’s location and soil composition) may be much less impactful than these other elements of plant material and indigenous yeasts, once one steps outside the broadest fruit flavor parameters to which the grape variety is limited. So the extent of terroir’s influence - meaning the physical location of the vine - must be considered with this in mind. 

A topic worthy of more discussion. 

Pernicious Delusion ? The Amateur Wine Review

Some fifteen years ago the amateur wine review was taken to task by certain people in the professional space, who asserted that these reviews were “pernicious delusion” - which is to say that these comments and scores had no value to the consumer as reliable assessments either of a wine’s character or style and, perhaps more importantly, of it’s quality. 

Matt Kramer (whom I greatly respect) asserted that “One hundred people who don't know much about, say, Auxey-Duresses, adds up to 100 muddied, baffled and often duplicative conclusions.”

And with reference to sites that post amateur reviews, Steve Brody posted in 2014 - “The readers and users of these sites are almost always slaves to their personal preferences and current trends.”

Amateurs are presumed to be a) untrained  b) subject to bias and c) lacking in expertise.

Cellartracker and other platforms which operate as bulletin boards for wine reviews by amateurs of course protested.  Analysis was done that purported to demonstrate how closely correlated in actuality were the scores given by those who post on Cellartracker with the scores of professional critics - and that this correlation was not materially more divergent than the correlation between scores among the critics themselves. This analysis is available on the Cellartracker site.

So how much reliance should the consumer place on the “amateur” review posted on these sites ? 

In answering that question, let us not conflate two issues.  The first is whether there is value in the opinion of the person who truly has no wine expertise. The second is whether there is value in going to sites that post non professional reviews.  This note addresses only the second issue.

In making a determination as to that second question, I make two points that are fairly evident -

(a) The space is not served by professional critics. 

I myself refer to Cellartracker (and similar other sites) because there is nowhere else I can go to get a sense of where a wine is today.  Professional critics seldom revisit a wine after 10 years or 20 years. On those occasions where I can find a professional critic’s review of a 15 year old bottle of Michel Lafarge Volnay Vendage Selectione I greatly value that opinion. But good luck trying to find that review.

(b)  The “amateur’ world now includes many people who really know their stuff.

It is pretty clear when reading a note on Cellartracker if the person knows what they are talking about. And I would be the first to admit that if you have a high bar in this regard that number of persons may be less than 5% of the those submitting reviews. But apart from the quality of the content of any particular review text itself as an indicator of the knowledge of the person writing the review, there is data available as to the submitter of the review - for example, how many entries they have posted. How can one assert that someone who has written more than 600 reviews this year on Cellartracker, is untrained, subject to bias and lacking in expertise ? Not only that, but I can sort by reviewer. Some of my friends post on Cellartracker - and I value their opinion more than most professional critics.

The amateur wine drinking world has changed - even in the last 15 years. At it’s apex it has become much more competent, knowledgable and qualified. The reality is there is now a whole host of people - many of whom are in the wine industry or so close to it as to make no difference - whose opinions of wine are reliably informative. Consider how many people have earned the WSET Diploma - are all these people to be supposed untrained and lacking in expertise ? In any given year there are almost 100,000 people attending WSET wine courses - and WSET is just one course provider. Consider how many have actually been to visit wine regions.  Information today is so much more readily available. Dedicated enthusiasts today really know their stuff.

Of course when a review on Cellartracker speaks to the high level of tannin in a Barbera d’Alba I set that review aside. But am I to set aside the opinions of members of our own little wine tasting group - made up largely of people working in the wine trade or who have qualifications in wine - simply because they are not professional wine critics ? Of course not.  And no doubt those professional or aspiring professional critics who 15 years ago were so vocal in disparaging the value of the amateur review would not contest this either. By “amateur” they meant only people who are biased, untrained and lacking in expertise. Not simply people who aren’t professional wine critics. Today a great number of amateurs know precisely where Auxey-Duresses is - and many of these have actually visited the village, tasted from its cellars and know whether the wine went through malolactic fermentation. And they are posting reviews. And with that, the value of these sites has increased.

Whether there is value in the opinion of the true uninformed amateur - one who is indeed untrained or inexperienced - is a whole different debate.  I am just saying the serious enthusiast is not in that category and that their number should not be underestimated.

The picture directs one to Auxey-Duresses. 

Drink now to…….

I have been struck recently by how often critics’ reviews have informed the reader that “this Barolo can be drunk right away”. Let us not be fooled by the full extent of the pressure on wine producers today to make their wines very drinkable on release. Even the grand chateau of Bordeaux or the makers of Hermitage or indeed Barolo must produce a wine that is pleasant to drink on release, even if everyone would agree the best still lies years ahead. A wine simply must be immediately enjoyable. The restaurant business demands this because they don’t have the resources to hold wine. And so does the consumer, who rightly takes the view that a great wine will taste great in its youth also and they should be free to drink it whenever they choose.

So in relation to the question of when to drink a wine meant for longer aging, the answer today is simply a matter of personal preference. Of course all quality wines can be drunk immediately. Thirty years of improvements in wine making and especially tannin management have ensured this. It is not poison.

One can legitimately like wines fresh, with pure fruit uncomplicated by the tertiary and savory notes that long aging brings. One can admire freshness over complexity. So you drink your wines young - all types of wine, even those meant for long aging. These grand wines still show something special in their youth - a different kind of quality and beauty but quality and beauty nonetheless. 

This is no less true of whites than of reds.

And I do not judge those who prefer their Barolo on the younger side. Some like their pizza with thick crust. Some prefer their pasta softer than I. Some put cream and sugar in their coffee. Who am I to judge ? 

But i think there is one time during which no one should prefer to drink a wine - and that is when the fruit is really tight and when the wine is really closed up. The nose is very restrained. Tightness on the palate affects the sense of texture and generosity of fruit. I find the rosebud analogy helpful. Looking at a rosebud just about to open one can sense a coiled spring about to release itself. But it is too soon to pick that bud.  There is so much more beauty still to come. And so it is with wine.  Some vintages hold this tightness of fruit for a long time - 2005 red Burgundies at the higher quality levels have still not unfurled and become relaxed. Others - like those from the 2007 vintage - were open on release and never tighten up. Red wines intended to be aged can go though a closed period of a few years - perhaps three to six or seven years after the vintage. Some vintages never go through this dumb phase. Some types of wine are more prone to this closed period than others. You can try and coax some life into the wine in a decanter. But ultimately no-one should prefer to drink wine that is tight because it will give neither the fresh young beautiful fruit so admired by those who like their wines young nor yet the fully expressed layered complexity sought by the patient.  I think it is true that while almost any wine can be drunk on release - and I do not denigrate critics who so assert - but a critic should also respect the likelihood in some vintages that the wine will shut down for several years after the first one or two years in bottle. And while of course you can drink it during this closed period it would be a shame to do so. That is not a style preference. No one should most enjoy the wine during this closed period.

My personal preferences are still developing but are these -

1 I like dry whites on the younger side. I find the weight whites put on with age not always to my liking except in a few particular cases. A great white Burgundy with a lot of age can be faith restoring in its beauty but I now seldom wait 20 years. Gerard Boudot at Domaine Sauzet told me in 1994 that there is an inflection point at which white burgundies become a completely different wine - especially on the nose. This change occurs at about eight or nine years. My experience aligns with that.

2 I find many less prestigious reds can last and improve over much longer periods given good storage. For example I seldom drink a red St. Joseph younger than ten years, even though the books say you should have drunk it by then. This of course is entirely a matter of my personal preference. Nor is capacity to improve with time in bottle the monopoly of well known international grape varieties. Just to illustrate the point, there are surely at least a dozen Italian grape varieties worth laying down a while. I have laid down some Frappato just to see if it gets interesting.

3 Some wines age less reliably over long periods than others. White Burgundies I rarely keep more than ten years. Premature oxidation is not yet completely behind us. Red Burgundies seem to me to age less reliably well over 25 + years in bottle than Bordeaux. And I find I like my red burgundies to have some fruit left. I don’t want a glass tasting of nothing but decaying leaves, leather and mushrooms. Older Barolos can be pretty variable. Recent improvements in winemaking may be helpful to improving the reliability of the wine over time, but it may also simply be that Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo will never age as consistently over the very long haul as Cabernet Sauvignon. If nine out of ten Pauillacs are still good at 30 years, maybe only seven out of ten Barolos and six out of ten Burgundies are all that you would hope for. Perhaps the perfect progression of Nebbiolo and Pinot Noir is simply more dependent on impeccable storage conditions than Cabernet Sauvignon, which may be more forgiving. The evolution in bottle of different grape types probably merits a separate post. That is another reason why I am skeptical of blends, especially super Tuscans. Grapes don’t age at the same rate. So at 25 years you may have some reason to be concerned.

4 I age Champagne in the cellar. Less bubbles. More refinement.

5 I am not yet fully convinced about aging dry Riesling. I have some put away and we will see. I came fairly recently to dry riesling and so my views are not yet fully formed. But I am unsure if the fullness of body that aging brings sits well with a wine that I think of as being light and refreshing. The fault is no doubt mine. It will only take a single bottle of truly great dry riesling at 20 years to change my mind. I just haven’t drunk it yet. Bring on the Clos st Hune !

6 I try hard to keep my hands off desert wines for a long time. Time allows the sweetness to become less sugary and integrate into the wine. Sauternes, beerenauslese, icewein and Jurancon really change for the better after 20 years and continue to get more interesting still as they age longer. If you press me I like sweet Riesling best of all. You don’t need much but they are the perfect end to a meal as it lingers pleasantly into the small hours.

7 Opinions change. This brings some regrets as your preferences move away from something you now wish you had bought less of. But there is upside too. It has took me twenty years but I now appreciate the wonder that is Chateauneuf du Pape. That’s OK. But I still give it 15 years !

Cross Purposes in Barolo

There is lot of material out there that would have us believe that the categorization of growers into traditionalist or modernist in Barolo is no longer helpful and that, for the most part, all wineries today have adopted aspects of both camps. Whether this assertion irritates you depends on how you define the terms.  And that in turn depends on from which side you approach it. 

You can take the view - as articulated by Silvia Altare and Chiara Boschis - that what the “modernist” movement represented at its outset was support for innovations of all types, across both viticulture and vinification practices, including simply encouraging lower yields, adopting cleaner practices in the cellars and even single vineyard bottling. It was an attitude more than a mandate to pursue any particular technique. Included among these, but by no means the sole focus, were ideas in relation to taming the tannins of nebbiolo by adopting shorter fermentation periods and aging the wine in barrique rather than botte. Extraction levels thus were more controlled. New wood and small aging vessels allowed for more complete oxygenation of the wine, smoother tannins and more polished fruit. The result was cleaner wines that could be drunk sooner than was the prior norm. Proponents were simply adopting many of the practices that were common elsewhere - especially in Burgundy - whose financial success stood in stark contrast. There was a strong need to do something since Barolo the region was truly suffering financially. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this last point, nor the sense of extreme regionality of the Langhe at this time. Few had ever left the region.

By this definition the traditional approach is one anchored in the past, reluctant to make changes that were essential to the survival of the region by steadfastly making wines that were not getting favorable attention in the growing global market, and particularly not from the American consumer.  Innovation was the key to generating interest and enthusiasm. And so, by this definition, the moment you innovate or experiment in any meaningful sense you have to accept that you have adopted, at least in part, the ‘modernist” mantra. You were moving away from the rigid traditions of the past and so from the label of being a traditionalist.

Since clearly the traditionalists today are also using the latest ideas in the vineyard as to pruning methods and canopy management and the lowering of yields - and they buy the newest desteming machines and other equipment for the cellar - and since many original modernists have now dialed back their attachment to some of the cellar practices they so espoused three decades ago - a commentator could legitimately assert that everyone is moving to the center and the traditionalist/modernist divide should accordingly be set aside as anachronistic. The argument runs that to be a “modernist” reflected only an attitude. And since all of Barolo has embraced this new enthusiasm for innovation and experimentation to improve the wines, one can put the divisive traditionalist / modernist distinction to bed.

And everyone can get along with each other…. 

But by another definition the divide is still very much alive. This definition draws the distinction more narrowly by focussing only on what the wine in the glass tastes like. There is no doubt that wines of all styles are benefitting from all manner of innovation, but a wine made with long fermentation in wood under submerged cap followed by maturation in large old oak botte simply tastes different from a wine that has undergone shorter and more vigorous fermentation and subsequent aging in new barrique. And that style difference is so pronounced as to outweigh any other innovative elements in their viticulture or vinification that the wines may have in common.  Taking this approach, the labelling of “traditionalist” and “modernist” is really shorthand pertaining only to how you perform the specific fermentation and aging tasks set out above, which in turn so emphatically define the style of wine. There is the “original Barolo” style and every other style.

When traditionalists say they had to be strong throughout the 1990s and early 2000s to resist the pressure to change from making Barolo as as their fathers and grandfathers had made it to following the modernist winemaking template, they surely define this only in terms of these new techniques in the cellars.  I am sure it was not controversial to perform improvements in viticulture. Nor to try and keep the cellar cleaner. Nor to buy the newest equipment. Traditionalists do not think about the Modernist group principally as a group supporting all fresh ideas and experimentation. They think of it narrowly as a specific winemaking formula in the cellar, which results in wines of a very distinctive style.  Thus they hold out that the division is still real and helpful to the consumer in identifying the style of wine that can be expected in the glass. This style difference is so marked that some assert that the wines made in the newer style may be very good wine, but are not properly defined as Barolo.

Like most consumers, I can normally taste the style difference. And almost always by the second glass ! And so I still define growers in one category or another, using the labels “traditionalist” and “modernist” in the narrower sense of how they treat the vinification and the amount of new wood used in aging. I do struggle with those who assert that everyone today is making beautiful wine and there are now numerous different styles all of which are wonderful expressions of terroir, and there are people in the middle of the spectrum using 500 liter tonneau or leaving the wine in barrique only during malolactic, and so Barolo has moved on from this celebrated “traditional / modernist” distinction of the past. I don’t think Mauro Mascarello would agree. You either use barrique or you don’t. Your Barolo is either “original style” or it isn’t. The test, ultimately, is whether the distinction holds as reflected by what is in the glass as evaluated by the consumer. 

So it seems to me the two sides are talking at cross purposes.  A former modernist is likely to take the view that everyone now has the innovation bug that was so stimulated by the modernist group in the 1990s and so it is time to retire the labels. A “former” traditionalist, however, will likely assert the division still has value, because “original” style Barolo is stylistically so different from one aged in new barrique and the market recognizes this.

What must be acknowledged by everyone is that at a certain time Barolo’s recent history a set of growers promoted significant changes that drew a lot of favorable attention to the region - especially from American critics - and that the region benefited financially from that renewed interest. HIgher prices allowed for reinvestment, including of course by traditionalists.  Even if the more recent direction has seen a reversal of many of these more radical changes in the cellars by some of the wineries that had previously vigorously sponsored and pioneered them, the region as a whole must be grateful for the life in every sense that has returned to Barolo as a result of the dynamism of some committed individuals some decades ago. 

Langhe Nebbiolo

I struggle with lighter versions of Langhe Nebbiolo because I don’t understand the place they hold at the table. I don’t really have a clear idea under what circumstances I am supposed to drink them.

It makes perfect sense that since Barolo itself is so much a wine for special occasions that winegrowers should be given a recognized DOC in order to sell wine almost immediately at a lower price point. And so we have Langhe Nebbiolo DOC.  As we do Rosso di Montalcino DOC. And it has been very successful.  Customers can expect the beauty of nebbiolo made by a favored wine maker in a style suitable for immediate drinking for a price normally a third or a quarter of their Barolo.

But its important to recognize that Langhe Nebbiolo basically comes in two styles. The first is a lighter style that is fermented for only a fairly short period and sees no wood at all. It is aged in stainless steel for perhaps a year.  The second style is more substantial. The wine may be fermented in wood - though have less lengthy contact with the skins than were it to be a Barolo - and will have seen some months in wood in its aging. There are wines that fall between these two styles, but broadly these are the two approaches.

The first style is made for almost immediate consumption for the freshness of its fruit. It is a wine that is a celebration of the nebbiolo variety’s exuberant fruit. The second can be kept many years. The more serious style has been pejoratively called a “mini barolo”. Some growers make it and others seem very much to prefer the lighter style, feeling that they don’t also want to make a second class “Barolo”.

Nebbiolo isn’t my aperitif wine grape of choice. So that’s out. And to my taste the lighter style doesn’t really work at table because although there is the prettiness and freshness of fruit, there is also quite a lot of acid and tannin. There isn’t so much depth to the fruit. So the wines when in their first or second year to me do not always seem to be in the best balance. They can seem quite angular and disjointed, in need of calming down. And yet if you wait several years that beautiful fresh fruit disappears and there is not the depth of fruit to compensate for its loss. There are normally better options. Chianti perhaps ? The more serious style to my taste works better at table. There is normally enough fruit concentration to support and balance out the substantial framework. These are wines meant to be kept six or seven years perhaps and develop a little complexity along the journey at the expense of the initial prettiness and freshness. So I tend to prefer this style. But I sometimes ask - why not drink a Barolo and get the real thing ?

That’s just me.  You may differ.  And I am happy to be proved wrong. 

Cabernet Franc's time

This is short post with simple message.

Cabernet Franc in France is typically planted where the temperatures or the soils are not warm enough for Cabernet Sauvignon.  But while it is true Cabernet Franc does ripen about a week earlier than Cabernet Sauvignon (of whom it is a parent), that still means that it is often planted in regions where it only just gets ripe. And if it does not, it can taste pretty green and horrible.  In St Emilion its inclusion in the final blend has historically been spotty and varied, illustrating how problematic it is regularly to get full ripeness in a marginal climate in a grape variety with high phenols.

But global warming has changed all that. 2018 for example was a vintage where Cabernet Franc did extremely well in France - in the sense that it had no difficulty getting fully ripe - both on Bordeaux’s right bank and in its ancestral home in the Touraine section of the central Loire. 

And when it does get fully phenolically ripe of course that greenness - the leafy sensation that seems to run throughout the wine - is less present and what you get is many of the desirable qualities of Cabernet Sauvignon but with less bracing acid and without any of the aggressive tannin.  When it reaches these levels of ripeness the fruit is darker and there is a silkiness of texture surrounded by a less insistent tannic structure. The wine is more aromatic with that attractive graphite smell one associates with Cabernet Sauvignon from the Medoc.

And of course it ages well - witness Chateau Cheval Blanc, which is two thirds made up of Cabernet Franc and where ripeness normally is achieved courtesy of the heat retaining warmer gravel soils of the terroir in which these vines grow.

The grape’s increasing appeal in these warmer times is evidenced by new plantings in St.Emilion at really prestigious names - like Chateau Ausone and the associated property La Clotte. 

The wine drinking public in the USA has long been adverse to Cabernet Franc.  That may be about to change.  Current vintages of Chinon and Bourgeuil, showing the qualities of the grape when climate favors its more gracious and silky qualities, may in the future seem very cheap indeed.  

Predictions of change in popularity of certain grape varietals are a graveyard of false starts. Riesling anyone ? It takes a while to change perception. But perhaps Cabernet Franc’s time has finally come.

The picture is of course of Cabernet Franc grapes, courtesy of the Domaine Baudry website

Lost in Translation

It is important to distinguish what we actually taste on the one hand and how we describe that taste on the other. And it must be true that any two people tasting a wine may actually taste different flavors or taste the same flavors but describe them differently.  

The problem with describing fruit flavors too precisely is that even if we assume the two tasters do in fact sense the very same flavors on the palate, very few people have a sophisticated ability to describe that flavor by reference to very particular fruits.  Once you get beyond the realm of fruits people encounter frequently - cherries, blackberries, strawberries, lemons limes, mangos and pineapples perhaps - you move into the space where really no one knows how a particular fruit is more nuanced in its flavor than the broad fruits with which we are all very familiar.     

But I may use a specific fruit name as a marker for a flavor. There are certain individual fruit flavors that in my mind I associate with certain grape varietals. I give this flavor the name of a particular fruit that correlates in my mind with what I taste. I use that fruit name as a marker for that taste if I taste a wine blind. For example, to my palate, Grenache has a unique red fruit flavor to which I have given a name - “Mulberry”. I don’t know so much about what mulberries actually taste like (I am told they can be red or black) but I associate the word with what I imagine/believe Mulberries taste like - a warm mellow soft luscious red fruit. And this is the flavor I sense when I taste mature Chateauneuf. “Mulberries” is like a shorthand for that very particular flavor. The chance you also associate what you taste in mature Grenache with “Mulberries” is almost nil. Likely you have chosen a different fruit to identify the flavor. So my marker word may as well be “Tarzan” for all the value it would serve communicating to you a unique and precise flavor.  “This tastes like mature Grenache normally does for me” is all my marker word describes and this is not useful to you. The choice of marker is entirely personal.   

I imagine every experienced taster has marker names in this way - including wine critics - but knowing the marker fruit name you give to what you taste is not helpful to me because it is not the same as mine. My Mulberries” may be your Damsons”. I concede my choice of marker fruit is not entirely arbitrary - “Mulberry” does tell you more about what I sense than if my marker word actually was “Tarzan” . I am communicating in the broadest terms some sense of what I am experiencing. Yet it would be more helpful for me to say I experience “a warm mellow luscious red fruit” than “mulberries”. My intended message in this post is that it is more helpful to use more generic descriptions than trying to identify flavors by reference to obscure seldom tasted fruits which are markers of that flavor only to you, however accurate that association may appear. Any benefit is lost in translation. 

And I suppose we should all eat a wider variety of fruits…

See also the brief post on “Colors”.

The picture above is of a Mulberry, as I am sure you supposed.

Shapes

Wine notes - not least my own - are littered with references to shapes.  This in itself is a pretty bizarre idea, since of course the fluid itself can have no actual shape. 

By shape one is really seeking to define a movement. The wine, on entering the palate, starts to move into a shape.  Many shapes are used to describe the way the fruit moves across the palate, but truly I think these can be categorized at the headline level into just two classes. 

A wine is said to be “Round”  if the fruit moves horizontally across the palate after entry.  This word seems to be used quite universally to describe this sensation. There is a width and breadth to the way the wine fills the mouth - particularly with reference to its fruit. Certain grape varietals seem to have the propensity to deliver their fruit horizontally in this way.  Pinot Noir grapes grown in alluvial soils in Burgundy - from lower down the slope and so on deeper topsoils and with less limestone and more clay - would appear to result in rounder wines. Likely this type of soil also inclines other grape varieties to express their fruit horizontally. Other descriptions might include “Lateral”.  Wines with especially ripe expansive fruit seem to me to do this.  The fruit coats all parts of the mouth.

The contrast is a wine that is described as “Vertical’ or “Linear" in the way the wine - and especially its fruit - moves across the palate. The wine has a lot of direction towards its finish and seems to by-pass any sense of roundness. The sense of motion can be quite strong in these wines. No time to linger and caress the palate with voluptuous fruit. I think this urgency may have more to do with the wine’s acid than its fruit because I think a flabby wine - lacking in acid - will surely have the sensation of being ‘round”.   To be vertical a wine must surely have higher than average acid.  It is also possible I am told that this sense of movement can come from the wine’s tannin, which drives the wine forward. Wines grown in very poor stoney soils may have a tendency to be vertical in shape.

Then there is Romanee Conti itself - said to be a “spherical wine” - which presumably means it moves in all directions at once. 

What may complicate the idea of roundness a little is that Pinot Noir seems to have a unique capacity to appear to expand its flavors in the mouth - it does this to a degree other grapes do not. Pinot Noir comes to you - you never have to chew the wine to sense the fruit. But this quality does not mean the wine is properly described as “round”.   

Tannins themselves can be defined by reference to a coarseness of grain - from silk through velvet and on to fine grained and then gravelly. This is another reference to shape in an effort to describe texture. Here one is not describing movement so much as a particle size, which is an attempt to define the degree of fineness of the texture of the tannins as they present themselves in the mouth.

The picture is by Juan Gris

Colors

I have long since abandoned attempts to define fruit flavors in wine too precisely.  We all have read in the past critics’ very precise articulation of these - moving way past the realm of any fruit I have ever tasted. And if using descriptors I am not familiar with did not make it hard enough to get a sense of what the wine tastes like, these flavors also are very subjective.  One person’s boysenberry is another person’s mulberry.  It may be that I do actually taste the very same flavor as you do but simply have a different name for it, or it may in fact be that I do not taste exactly the same flavor as you do, in which case precise descriptors have no value.  

So I fully support simplifying the words we use to articulate the fruit flavors in wine to establish a baseline that surely can be a meaningful communication of sensation experienced by most. 

For fruits in white wine my headline categories are only these - green, white or yellow.  These will align to grape variety and also to the climate of the year.  Citrus fruits - crisp apple and lime - are likely in the green category. Some stone fruits - peaches for example - I place in the white category, though some orchard fruits in a ripe year may have yellow fruit elements. Pineapple or anything approaching apricot or tropical fruit in flavor are in the yellow fruit category.  If one then wants to be more specific one is free to do so, but the baseline is established.  And I think it is self evident that going on to be more specific may have value but absolutely has increasingly diminishing returns in communicating a flavor sensation the more nuanced my definition gets.

The same approach works for fruit sensations in red wines. The fruit is either “dark” or “black” on the one hand or red on the other.  Some fruits can be red or black - cherries for example.  Many wines have mixed red and darker fruits. Few grape varietals other than Cabernet Sauvignon in my experience have only dark fruits. Darker fruits are also associated with warmer vintages. Having established this baseline one can add nuance by attempting to describe in a more refined way what one is tasting, which may or may not resonate with others.  

Describing fruits flavors by reference to fruits no one has ever tasted seems unhelpful and when written by a critic comes across as pompous and condescending. But some of them just cannot stop themselves. I will spare you the most egregious examples. Suffice to say I normally start laughing and always stop reading.

See also the accompanying post “Lost in Translation”.

Burgundy Prices - OMG

You will be familiar with the reasons for the escalation of prices for the finest wines from Burgundy. I do not propose to review them here. Suffice to say none of these reasons look like candidates to disappear anytime soon.  So we should expect prices for the top Burgundies to persist at current levels for a good while longer.  I have yet to hear a really feasible argument to the contrary.

The crazy prices have had many consequences - most of them not good.

1. First, just to get it out of the way, the most selfish consequence. Loyal consumers who have bought a higher end wine from particular Domaines for years can no longer afford these wines. This list is alarmingly long but just to give one example I no longer can afford to buy Domaine Mugnier Chambolle-Musigny Les Fuees, a wine I have consistently bought since the early 1990s.  Bah !  I should say of course that normally this is not the growers’ fault - the ex Domaine charge can be extremely reasonable and not have risen much at all. But all those subsequent percentage based mark ups in the distribution chain…..Not good. 

2. Younger consumers will never - or very seldom - get a chance to experience the very best wines, whose price point has driven these wines completely out of reach. Only perhaps in the rarified atmosphere of structured tastings might they get to taste a sip. How is a young sommelier to learn his trade ?  Is it smart to alienate what may be an entire generation of young wine enthusiasts ? I say this not only in the context of DRC or Domaine Rousseau - whose wines are now the reserve of millionaires - but even in relation to the better village level wines in Burgundy, the cost of many of which exceed $100. There is quality in Burgundy to be found at lower prices than this but a large portion of the best wines will never be drunk by even the most ardent enthusiast…. Not good.

3. Wine prices in most restaurants are even more absurd than ever, reducing any benefit that may derive from restaurants’ wine lists providing the opportunity to try something exceptional in a perfect setting…. Not good.

4. Given the now high value of your long stored bottle of Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru Les Beaumonts, the bottle’s value almost requires that its contents be contemplated at some length. I find myself limiting my consumption of these wines only to when in company of those who will appreciate the privilege of drinking them, that privilege deriving as much from rarity as value. I have so many fewer bottles at this level than I used to. So my best wines are drunk only with my knowledgable wine buddies. Can that be good ? No…. Not good.  

5. Land prices have gone up to levels that make no sense on the basis of returns on investment.  This is a complicated issue but has a profoundly adverse impact on the domaines themselves, who are not only unable to grow their estates but face punishing death taxes.   The prestige of owning these vineyards - which in turn has resulted from the increased luxury product association of the wine they generate - has now meant that corporations are buying land / Domaines at uneconomically high prices because they want the prestige/ marketing benefits of ownership but do not need the investment intrinsically to yield a profit. Until quite recently, this promotional motivation has been mostly a Bordeaux phenomenon, but now has expanded its reach into Burgundy and elsewhere…. Not good. 

6. You can still find bargains in Burgundy - from the less well known villages (which are fast becoming a lot less well known) - and running these down is fun.  But it is a constant toil because the ‘new names” of today stay undiscovered for not so long any more. The internet has not helped in this. Word travels fast. So you have to keep moving forward.  Fortunately there are a lot of names emerging. No harm in this.  It is gratifying in fact to see the younger set have the success they deserve and their reputations grow, even if the wines are not quite the bargains they initially were. And their wine prices are capped by the more modest appellations they normally farm. This is the only benefit I can think of deriving from higher prices. Emerging growers get more support because we are are actively looking for them to avoid having to pay the high prices of the more established Domaines….Good

7. The prices of some other quality wines in the world have already responded with increases of their own. This is to be expected and reflects the fact that of course many high quality wines are made in small quantities akin to Burgundy. So the top end wines from these celebrated regions have also risen in price. Witness the price increases of the most sought after Barolo between vintages 2008 and 2013. Barolo was always a strong candidate to see price increases given its many similarities to Burgundy - strong association with terroir, well delineated vineyard sites, making small production wines that last. So now we are all running around trying to figure which ‘famous” wine region’s wines are currently really out of price alignment with Burgundy on the quality/price ratio….Maybe Good

Knowing the vigneron’s dog

No surprise here. This is the shortest post on the site. Practically every sommelier, retailer and importer of wine worth his salt today has met the person who has made the wine they sell.  And they will know the name of the winemaker’s dog. 

There is a simple reason for this. It is a more enriching experience to drink wine made by someone you have met - and even better if you have met that person several times. And it is even better still if you can call that person a friend (though you probably need to be in the business to be able to do that with any regularity). You know how hard they have worked to put that wine in your glass and you likely know more about the particular conditions that produced the wine - the steepness and exposition of the vineyard and the particular challenges the weather presented that year.  You know what the wine maker is trying to achieve and how he goes about meeting that objective. You know all the little decisions made along the way that shaped the wine. Above all you are first hand witness to the passion and the care that goes into making every bottle.

This makes the wine in the glass much more personal.   The passion rubs off.  You too have made some greater effort to understand the wine. There is no substitute. 

And the dogs are great too and have the most imaginative names.

The uniqueness of blends

We were at our annual visit with Mario Fontana in Perno in the Barolo region. Mario is a traditionalist in all senses of the word, including having  a strong attachment to the benefits of blending vines from various sites, whether as a classico barolo version or as a “Commune di Castiglione Falletto” bottling when all the component vineyards are from that village.

There are many legitimate reasons for blending crus. But while defending this traditional practice he mentioned the simplest reason - and one I had not to that point spent much time thinking about.  

His contention is that most single vineyard wines are not “unique” because few are monopoles and so a bottle of the single cru Vigna Rionda, for example, although perhaps magnificent, is not in his view truly unique because there are several producers who make a wine from Vigna Rionda.  Such wines presumably share very similar characteristics. So no bottling of Vigna Rionda is unique. Whereas if you drink his “commune” wine, or indeed his Barolo classico, no other wine has precisely the same vineyard composition and so his wines are in this sense unlike any other.  A client can develop an affinity and affection for his wine and his wine alone. There is nothing else exactly like it. Jean Gonon in an interview in May 2020 similarly asserted that his St Joseph - which is a blend of at least five parcels - is itself unique from any other. It is so because it is his wine and he has made it in his own way. But it also surely unique because no one else has the precisely the same component parcels that go into it.

This raises a host of issues about the scope of terroir and how blending several parcels relates to the concept of terroir (addressed in another post) but one can hardly refute that a blended wine is unique. All the elements that go into that singular wine - the particular sites included, the farming practices in the vineyard and methods adopted in the cellar, perhaps even the personality of the vigneron - can produce a wine whose enhanced value in the eyes of the consumer derives from the totality of all these elements. And among these elements the particular sites in which grapes were grown may in fact be the least important.

But sometimes the vineyard composition of a blend rises to a position of playing a large role in defining the wine. Those components - if historically consistent - can create a wine with a strong identity of its own, driven by its component parts. It is well known for example that Maria Teresa Mascarello’s Barolo “blend” has four vineyard components. These have been the same for a long time. Since vintage 2015 however one of these four - San Lorenzo - was replanted and “replaced” in the blend by grapes from a fifth site - Monrobiolo di Bussia - (a site in the Barolo Commune despite its name) - rented for several years for that specific purpose. There was some concern that this change might alter the taste of the blend. Care was taken to ensure that the adjustment did not result in any noticeable loss of identity as the  Bartolo Mascarello wine - the Monrobiolo di Bussia soils are similarly sandy and have the same exposition as the San Lorenzo site now to be omitted. The Bartolo wine is of course strongly defined by its component parts because of it’s long history of including the same sites in the same proportion and has now acquired an identity of its own that is worthy of being sustained. This identity is valued - and so when necessity dictated needing to alter the blend slightly , care was taken so much as possible not to lose that identity.  Perhaps Rinaldi’s “Tre Tine” bottling has a  similar affection among consumers. No doubt there are many other candidates. The longer the vineyard components of a blend have remained the same presumably the more risk there is in making component changes - not because the subsequent wine is any more or less unique than the earlier wine, but because the consumer has come to expect the wine to taste a certain way. The Bartolo and Rinaldi Tre Tine blends’ uniqueness is well defined and recognizable based on a long history of appreciation.

That there are few blends that have the stature and well defined identity of Bartolo Mascarello’s wine does not invalidate Mario’s point that all blends are in practice unique. And at least as unique as a wine from a single vineyard shared by many growers.